Miracle at 48th Street?

[herveus]

Whilst listening to Bomb Shelter Radio last night, Fuzz was talking about the off-airport landing of the USAir flight from LaGuardia. I'm pretty sure I heard him say something like "it's a miracle". I'm not sure if he was speaking for himself or quoting someone... whatever.

The first thing that leapt to mind was "If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a Boxer Henry short point 45 caliber miracle", spoken by Lieutenant Chard to Colour Sergeant Bourne at the conclusion of the remarkable stand by B Company, 24th Foot, at Rourke's Drift in which a company stood off three battalions or so of Zulus over a day and a night. Great story.

It is clear from the outcome on the Hudson that the drivers didn't stop flying that airplane until it had come to a complete stop, then saw to the orderly disembarkation of the passengers in their care. It is a remarkable outcome, but we are not at a loss for an explanation of how it came to pass, thus not meeting the requirements for miraculosity.

Ah, well...

Update: The article in the Washington Post was laudably free from hyperbole. It did claim that the birds in question were geese -- somewhat larger than most birds. It did say "Safety experts expressed surprise that a commercial jet with modern engines could be brought down by a flock of birds." Some experts...

Comments

[nostasia.livejournal.com]

Some "safety experts." It's called "bird strike" and the aviation world is well-aware that it can bring a plane down, modern or not. I'm really glad that in this case everyone got out safely.

[jpgsawyer.livejournal.com]

Not entirely. I work in this field and its its an extremely unlikely event that both engines will be disabled by a flock of geese.

To start with the engines are over 80m apart which means the flock has to be very large, also airports spend a lot of money detecting and dispersing flocks of birds from the paths of airliners.

So yes bird strike is a common enough event but this incident is an exceptional event and that is what is surpising to those of us who work in this field.

[herveus.livejournal.com]

I'll grant the unlikeliness of the event, but for experts to express surprise that it could happen at all is what prompted my snark.

80m seems more like the wingspan of an A320, not the engine spacing. I might buy 80 feet...

All the same, yes it was exceptional, but to be surprised that it could happen at all suggests unwarranted optimism.

[jpgsawyer.livejournal.com]

Sorry my bad, too much working on the A380!

[fuzzface00.livejournal.com]

At one point a pundit said "the bird strike knocked out two engines". The tone implied that this was not a fatal event for the aircraft. After a quick reference check, I realized said pundit was unaware that the A320 only had two engines.